


Nuclear Family

by WotanAnubis



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F/F, Mutants, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 19:31:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12711474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WotanAnubis/pseuds/WotanAnubis
Summary: In which Kimberly goes to great lengths to get a sip of Trini's water.





	Nuclear Family

Kimberly despised Angel Grove. The people living there tended to be petty and overly protective of their own. When they looked at her and saw her face, not one of them even tried to hide their disgust at her. The children usually didn't mind. They seemed to like the pink jewel growing from her forehead. But the adults soon taught them differently.

That wasn't the worst part, though, not by a long shot. Kimberly had got pretty used to the way mutants got treated everywhere in the so-called civilized world. No, what really bothered her about Angel Grove was that it had existed _before_. All those buildings had been built before humanity had decided to nuke itself. Those buildings were ruins now, of course, but people still lurked in them. They lived in the decaying carcasses of a world that had committed suicide and thought themselves somehow better and more civilized than any wasteland tribe.

Still, there was one good thing about the Grove. So Kimberly regularly walked her way across the dry and dusty earth to the town of ruins, bringing meat and hides for trade. Each time, she hoped this time would be the last time. And hey, maybe she'd get lucky this time. One never knew, right?

Dry earth gave way to cracked roads and crumbling buildings rose around her, robbing Kimberly of the horizon. As she walked into their shadows, the jewel in her forehead seemed to blaze with pink light.

"Stay right there, mutie!"

Kimberly sighed, but paused as ordered. She was familiar with this song and dance.

A trio of town guards aimed their rusty guns at her. They were all dressed in heavy clothes, thick coats, black boots and wore gasmasks and gloves, completely obliterating whoever they were underneath. They might have been men, they might have been women, they might have been anything. There was absolutely no way to tell.

Kimberly, by contrast, was barely dressed at all. A few rags full of holes hung from her frame along with a belt across her waist, leaving most of her body revealed. Ordinary human skin, mostly, adorned with the lightning bolt tattoo of her tribe. Here and there, patches of pink scales gleamed. 

She must have looked quite a sight to the surely fully human guards. A debased mutant that couldn't even dress herself properly. But at least there was no denying she was _Kimberly_.

"Why're you here, mutie?" one of the guards demanded.

Their voice muffled by the gasmask, their face completely hidden, there was no way of telling which guard had spoken. Kimberly thought the voice had probably come from the one on the right, but it had so dim and muffled she couldn't be sure.

"Trade," Kimberly said.

"You haven't got anything we want, mutie."

Kimberly resisted rolling her eyes. Part of her felt the need to point out that, unlike these apparently anonymous three, she did have a name. She didn't bother. The pure humans of Angel Grove didn't acknowledge mutants as people.

"I've got meat."

"Yeah, well, you just-" one began.

"You got a permit, mutie?" one cut in.

Kimberly took a scrap of paper from one of the pouches hanging from her belt and tossed it at the guards. Even though they all wore gloves, not one of them picked it up, just looked at it from afar.

"Guess everything's in order," said one guard.

"Run along now, and don't cause trouble," said a guard, that might have been the same guard or maybe not.

"Yes, sirs," Kimberly said dutifully, retrieving her permit.

She despised Angel Grove. One day she'd leave the place and never come back. Try to convince the tribe to go... well... _anywhere_. But not today.

Or maybe today, if she got lucky.

* * * * *

If Angel Grove could be said to have a community center, it'd be the Ispy Eme. It had got this exalted status by being one of the less ruined buildings in town. It even bore some of its original frontage, built by the very people who had decided to launch the nukes. Apparently, this was something to be proud of, though Kimberly had never quite managed to figure out why.

The first thing Kimberly did as she walked into the crowded building was spot Trini. She always did. Trini was the sole reason she was here in the first place. The pink gem in her forehead flared into life when she saw the young woman weaving between the tables.

Trini had spotted her, too. She'd had her back turned to Kimberly, but the moment she'd set foot across the threshold, Trini had turned around and seen her. And then turned back and pretended she hadn't.

Kimberly wanted to just go straight for Trini. Grab her by the arm and drag out of this ruined building and out of this wretched town and into the wastes where she belonged. She couldn't do that, though. Trini would resent her for it. Might even go back to Angel Grove. No. When Trini made the plunge, and Kimberly was sure Trini would take the plunge one day, it'd be on her own terms.

Kimberly made her way through the seated patrons towards the counter. She couldn't help but notice that everyone was eating meat with whatever else they were eating. Strange that. Angel Grove couldn't support livestock and hunting was just too primitive for these civilized people. And yet, they had meat. It was almost as if _someone_ did their hunting for them so they could have meat with their meals.

"Ah, it's you," Trini's father greeted her pleasantly as she reached the counter.

"It sure is," Kimberly replied.

Trini's father had never bothered to learn Kimberly's name. But, in fairness, she'd never bothered to learn his. It was an arrangement that suited both of them well.

"Let's talk in the back," Trini's father suggested.

The back of the Ispy Eme was much like the front; dirty, cracked, ruined, but at least with a roof. And with a working refridgerator. Kimberly had never liked it. The thing loomed and hummed distressingly. She really would've liked it if the machine would stop doing that, but it never did.

"That's quite the haul," Trini's father remarked as he weighed the meat Kimberly had brought him on some device that probably would have made sense to Billy, but was incomprehensible to Kimberly.

"Pack of wild pigs wandered into our territory," Kimberly said.

"And you killed them all, eh?" Trini's father said.

Kimberly gave him an odd look. "What? No. Of course not."

"Couple of them slipped away? Ah well, can't have everything I suppose. Still, I'm very pleased with this, so it's fine."

"Sure," said Kimberly. "Can I have my payment now?"

Trini's father carefully counted out some green pieces of paper. Kimberly didn't pay it much attention. She wasn't here to get to paid. Those ancient bills meant nothing to her. But she had to pretend to care about them, or else she'd lose her one excuse... her one _acceptable_ excuse... to visit Angel Grove.

"Here you go," Trini's father said, handing Kimberly a small stack of green paper. "And now, I've got to get this stored away."

"Nice doing business with you," Kimberly said, storing the paper in a pouch to keep up appearances. "Anyway, before I go, do you think I could something to eat?"

"Sure," Trini's father said.

* * * * *

The sun had already set, the artificial lights had gone on, and Kimberly had only just got a plate put in front of her. She hadn't been surprised at the wait. In fact, she'd been counting on it.

The Ispy Eme was an important place, constantly visited by important people. Or at least, people more important than some mutant savage. Of course they deserved to be served first. Kimberly would just have to wait until her turn came up.

Kimberly had sat alone at her creaking little table. Once in a while, a child would stare at her jewel or her scales or her tattoo before getting distracted by food. The adult customers had pretended she didn't exist. Trini's father hadn't spared her a second glance. His business with her was done, after all. Trini hadn't looked at her either. But in her case it had been a very deliberate, conscious effort.

Now the Ispy Eme was empty. There was just Kimberly, sitting at her table, and Trini, reluctantly serving her food. Just the way Kimberly liked it.

She didn't like the food, though. The meat was alright. She'd hunted the meat. But the vegetables... They were pitiful, limp little things with no color or taste. The people of Angel Grove grew their own food. _Proper_ food. Food that had existed even before the bombs fell. Food, in short, that had no business growing in the irradiated soil and basically didn't. There were plenty of new kinds of fruit and roots growing out in the wastes, but that was all mutated stuff suitable only for mutants. Apparently.

Kimberly dug into her food with all the enthusiasm she could muster. She looked at Trini while she ate. The girl stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with herself. It was obvious she wanted to leave, but couldn't quite bring herself to.

"So, Trini, how've you been?" Kimberly asked pleasantly.

"Why do you care?" Trini shot back.

"Someone ought to," Kimberly said, taking a reluctant bite of some greenish-grey leaf.

"Well, someone does," Trini said. "Plenty of people."

"Your brothers, I think," said Kimberly. "Your parents, maybe. Everybody else, not a chance. Not about _you_."

Trini sighed. "So I should just follow you out into nowhere and join up with your little horde of barbarians," she said in a mocking, sing-song voice. "That where you were going with this?"

"Pretty much," said Kimberly.

"And that's why you're here, isn't it?" said Trini. "That's why you're always here."

"Yep," Kimberly said cheerfully. "And you haven't told anyone, which is why your dad is still doing business with me. I wonder why."

Trini didn't respond. Just awkwardly swayed back and forth on her feet.

"Can't imagine there's anything wait for me out there," Trini said at length. "I mean, look at you. Your clothes are barely hanging together as it is."

"What, these?" Kimberly said, gesturing at her rags. "I just wear this stuff because the humans out here get so flustered when I don't."

Trini started blushing hard. "Are you saying that... out there you don't... Don't you wear anything?"

Kimberly grinned. "Sure, sometimes. Stuff that looks pretty. But not anything that protects us from the environment or anything." She dragged a fingertip across some of her glittering pink scales. "We are part of the environment."

Trini shook her head. "You really are savages," she said, still blushing.

"I like to think we're free," Kimberly said. "To be who we are, you know. Without pretending."

"Whatever," Trini said harshly. "You've finished your dinner. You can get out now."

Kimberly stood up. "Alright. But before I go, could I have some water? All that food made me real thirsty."

Trini shrugged, disappeared behind the counter for a while, then returned with a glass of water. It was a clean glass, Kimberly noticed. Not even cracked.

"Thanks," Kimberly said, taking the water. "And I'm really sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Trini asked.

Kimberly grabbed Trini's wrist. The jewel on her forehead exploded into pink light. Underneath Trini's heavy clothes, in the center of her belly, yellow light sprang to life.

Trini sprang back, yanking her wrist free. The yellow light under her clothes faded. So did the pink light shining from Kimberly's forehead.

"What did you do?" Trini growled, and for a moment her teeth seemed sharper and her canines appeared longer.

"I'm really sorry," Kimberly repeated. "But, I think you needed to know that I know. That we know."

"You could've just said," Trini muttered angrily.

"You would've just denied it," said Kimberly.

"Yeah. Probably," Trini said.

Kimberly sighed. "Look, you can keep pretending. Try to make a life in Angel Grove. Keep pretending you're just another human. Keep away from everyone all of the time and always hide who you are. Or..."

"Come with you," said Trini.

"Come with me," Kimberly said. "Be whoever you want to be. With people who accept you."

Trini ran a hand through her hair. "I think you should go now."

Kimberly nodded. "Alright."

She turned and headed for the door. She stopped short just before the threshold.

"Hey, Kimberly. When'll you be back?" Trini asked.

"Next week?" Kimberly said.

"OK," said Trini. "See you next week."


End file.
